Your Less Than Relaxing Quizo Update

I'm back to work at the Death Star factory today (supposedly, at least, we'll see what happens when I get there), once again giving me the joy of going to work and not having to talk about it. I thoroughly enjoyed my little vacation and could totally get used to this six-months-on-one-month-off thing.

Sadly I cannot say I thoroughly enjoyed the Phillies winning their second division title in a row this Saturday because I had to watch the game with the horror of the annual block party raging outside. Let's see, an event that makes it impossible to park within 500 miles of my house that has children running around screaming up and down the sidewalk and concert-loud music blaring until ungodly hours of the night, all amplified by the strange acoustics of this block bouncing all of that noise directly into my bedroom window as though I was actually sleeping (or trying to sleep, as it were) smack in the middle of the street.

Dear god, there are few things on earth I hate more than the block party. When I get back to the office today I may "accidentally" hit the red button just to alleviate the aggravation.

JLK

Your "Always In Motion, Is The Force" Quizo Update

Let’s take a little walk down memory lane, shall we, to the events of last week, but not until after I throw some generalized questions out there at the teeming trivia masses.

Question the first: is anyone a botanist? Or do they know a botanist? I’m serious. I have a question about trees.

Question the second: I got Soul Calibur IV this weekend for 360. It is awesome. It might be the most beautiful video game in the history of Western civilization. I absolutely fucking suck at it. Can someone teach me how to not be awful at Soul Calibur? If you say “Use Yoda/The Apprentice” I will sell your intestines on eBay. Actually, not even eBay, on craigslist. That way you’ll know that some really skeevy, creepy dude from West Philly is going to have your intestines.

Question the third: continuing that theme, me and some pals are starting an online Dynasty in NCAA Football 09 (and, likely, Madden 09 when it comes out). Our style of play is best described as “casual sim.” We’re in it to have fun but we don’t screw around; if you’re one of those guys who puts a cornerback in at receiver and never punts and sprints your QB all the way out of the pocket no matter what play you run – in the parlance of the land, a “cheeser” – this is not the group for you. However, if you are the kind of person who, like me, would love to switch your team from a 4-3 to a 3-4 but doesn’t because “that’s not [insert school name here]’s defense” but you still laugh at yourself when you give up a 98-yard bomb TD, then come on down. I’m leaning toward a non-superpower conference – something like the Big East, the ACC, or C-USA – but if we actually get 12 people I would seriously consider the Big XII (obviously Kansas is taken). Let me know if you’re interested.

Now then, on with the show.

When last we left our intrepid band of Quizo adventurers we were… er… at Quizo. Yes. Well, we were at Quizo with the disastrous sports records speed round, which I honestly thought would have gone over better than it did. Fun was had, laughs were laughed, songs were sung, and so on and so forth.

Then came Tuesday, when I finally bought a shiny new car. Well, a shiny used car, but a newer car than I had possessed the day before (i.e. no car). By my automotive standards it practically is a new car anyway inasmuch as it is the first car I’ve ever had that, were it a human being, is not old enough to be a freshman in high school. At a scant two years young it is a more than an able replacement for my old car, which you will recall died in a rather spectacular manner after replacing my old old car, which died in a rather slow, agonizing, young-mother-of-three-with-inoperable-brain-cancer Lifetime movie manner.

On Wednesday morning, then, I had this conversation with my boss when he stopped by my desk:

Boss: Hey, I’m really sorry.

Me: Sorry about what?

Boss: (confused) Didn’t anyone talk to you?

Me: Nobody ever talks to me. (This is true; my desk is off in a corner literally surrounded by people from an entirely different department.)

Boss: Oh my god, I can’t believe [our super-boss] didn’t say anything to you.

Me: About…?

Boss: One of the finance people woke up yesterday and found out the program is out of budget. Completely broke. We have to let all the contractors go at the end of next week.

This is how I found out I am getting laid off. 16 hours after buying a car. And, because I am a contractor, without severance. Like you do. For a little while there I was fairly upset about this turn of events, and I still occasionally get moments of distress about it because, in a distinct change of pace, I actually really like this job. However, I am fairly sanguine about the whole process for two reasons. One, later that very day I got a call from a headhunter – who as a group I have been chasing away with sticks for the last 6 months, a behavior likely to change – asking me to interview for a job next week for the same salary I’m making now. And two, after some thought and calculation I realized that thanks to the largesse of our President I will be getting 9 months (possibly a full year) of unemployment benefits and that in those 9 months I can take the same number of day classes at Drexel that would take TWO YEARS to finish at night, so I am also strongly considering the possibility of going back to school full-time for a couple terms. So I have options, at least.

But then, in the wake of all this heartache and strife, came Sunday afternoon, and a Phil-tastic performance by Phil Mickelson on the final 9 at Firestone. Let me tell you if you didn’t see it, folks, it was CHOKE-FUCKING-TACULAR. When I’m feeling down – and, let’s face it, I’m a little down after all this – that damnable song is right, my favorite things DO cheer me up, and if there is a better or more favorite way to spend a summer Sunday afternoon than watching Chokey McChokerson give away a World Golf Championship on the last four holes of the tournament, oh Sweet Zombie Jesus I can’t think of it.

The kittens and their whiskers, though, they can go screw. I am not a cat person.

JLK

Your Misunderestimated Quizo Update

Before we get to the meat of this week’s little diatribe, let me say upfront that Quizo attendance the last 2-3 weeks (since the tournament) has been just short of alarmingly bad. I understand we probably had a little post-tournament letdown and that last Monday was the tax deadline, but come on, people – let’s see a little enthusiasm for trivia, here. We’re definitely at the bottom of the curve these last weeks and we need to get back on the upslope.

This weeks transmittal is late because, as I mentioned, time has conspired against me. To some this may sound whiny and bitchy, and to those people I say, “shut the hell up.” This weekend was a classic example of me pulling myself in too many different directions at once and paying the price for it Sunday night (which, with my lack of access to GMail at work, is when I normally write the actual e-mail these days).

This death spiral of overextension actually started last week with the first exam in my Calculus class.

Now understand this is the first test/exam/inquiry of any kind I have taken in approximately… [checks calendar]… 9 years and the first one I have taken where I was not actually, physically drunk while writing said test/exam/inquiry in 13 years. I recall the last math exam I took where not only was I so completely and thoroughly drunk throughout the entire semester that I had almost zero knowledge of the subject material at the final - I now find myself wondering, in fact, why I bothered taking the exam in the first place – but I was blitzed enough while taking it that aside from actually answering (incorrectly) one question, the remainder of my examination on vector calculus consisted of several coarsely-wrought essays on various topics. At this great remove the only ones I can REMEMBER writing were about why the X-Files was great, why Metallica’s new album (new at the time) sucked and how they were total sellouts, and why OS/2 was a terrible operating system (which, similarly, was an issue at the time). For some of the shorter problems I just wrote random Simpsons trivia. I am not making this up. These were my answers on a Vector Calculus exam. This is what happens when you drink as much as I did back then.

Back to the present, for this first, actual test last week I was determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past and to take this test – indeed, this whole school thing in general – and kick it in the junk. So I studied my ass off. I did problems left and right. I found a website that actually generates calculus exams – which is pretty neat – and did practice test after practice test after practice test set at the highest level of difficulty and complexity the site’s options would allow. I calculated limits until my fingers bled, a la Bryan Adams but not as cool (or Canadian, thankfully). At one point I was sure I had mathematically discovered a way to raise the dead. I studied the first three chapters of my textbook and the material therein until the sheer force of my calculus-bent will could destroy entire city blocks. I became the Jean Grey of introductory Calculus, able to wipe out entire galaxies with but a thought. I became as unto a god. Nay, I WAS a god.

Then I sat for the exam to find it was precisely six questions, five of which were about 1/1,000,000,000th as hard as the practice questions I’d been doing all week, and one of which was something I had inexplicably never seen before and thus had no idea how to solve. I finished the test in 12 minutes and got an 85.

Walking back to my car – where I had overpaid the parking meter by something like two hours – it briefly occurred to me that my time-and-effort-studying-to-test-difficulty ratio was slightly out of whack before my brain melted under the stress I had put it through for the previous seven days like a crayon in the back of a station wagon.

The stress of studying for the Exam to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Being when studying for “Hey, kids! Calculus!” was all that was really necessary left me in a sort of psychological lurch all weekend. My thoughts became reduced to the 21-st century equivalent of caveman grunts. At work on Friday all I could think was “weather nice. Get home. Galactica.” I picked up an Xbox 360 on the way home from work on Friday and I’m not entirely sure why. I honestly have no memory of deciding to get one, but there it sits on top of my DVD player anyway. It’s very nice. My Gamertag is Kozemp (duh!). Feel free to hit me up.

On Saturday I made the further mistake of going to the driving range and (in what is becoming something of a disturbing trend) hitting golf balls for the second time in 15 years and adding physical misery to my wretched intellectual state. Important safety tip: stretch before hitting golf balls. Also, if it has been many years SINCE hitting golf balls, going through an entire large bucket at once will make your hands, arms, elbows, shoulders, neck, back, knees and ankles feel as though they have been replaced with burning hot fireplace implements. Fucking OW.

After getting home from that, the entire rest of the weekend my thought process consisted of nothing beyond, “food. Water. Tylenol. Call of Duty 4. Supernatural. Sleep.” Occasionally I would swivel my chair to empty my ashtray. I’m amazed I remembered to watch my downloaded episode of Doctor Who. Seriously, I couldn’t bring myself (in a physical or emotional sense) to rouse myself out of that chair for almost two straight days. At 11:30-something last night while I was in the middle of another online FIFA match I realized that a) I had to go to bed soon, and b) I hadn’t written the Quizo e-mail yet. I went to bed hoping that I would be vaguely human enough in the morning to figure out a remedy for that. And here we are. I’m feeling much better now, thanks.

All things considered, though, there are worse things than overstudying, hitting golf balls with friends in the best weather in the history of the world, and having a leisurely weekend watching TV and playing video games (even if I didn’t seem to have a choice in the matter at the time). I could be a Democratic superdelegate, cause that’s looking like it’s going to be the worst job in the entire WORLD pretty soon. Hell, I’ve got it easy…

JLK

Serenity Now!

All the televisions in this place – in the break rooms, the convenience store, the hallways, everywhere – are constantly tuned to Headline News. Headline News is kind of the television equivalent of going to the dentist for a filling and the dentist saying “it’s not that deep, we’re not going to really go near the nerve, do you want to try it without novocaine?” And then you stupidly say yes, and everything goes well for a couple minutes and you’re feeling pretty good about yourself and the dentist isn’t actually so OW! MOTHERFUCKER! Guess you were closer to the nerve than you thought, you fucking prick!

This is what watching Headline News is like. It is vaguely bothersome but not really unpleasant for a while, and then something twitches and you end up with a spike in your brain.

So every time I leave my little area to get a cup of coffee at the store I am assaulted by the insipid ravings of bubbleheaded anchors who, frankly, I would rather see in Playboy than on the news. Just now I saw the thing about the video of the Marine in Iraq supposedly throwing a puppy. The whole thing smacks of internet fakery. Now, for my money, I don’t know how many cute widdle beagle puppies there ARE in Iraq necessarily. I’m guessing it’s not many. And I’m also guessing that your average Marine getting shot at and blown up in Iraq doesn’t spend a whole lot of time making carefully-shot videos of ANY sort of interaction with puppies, much less picking one up and giving it a solid heave. I’m guessing they probably leave the puppies alone since it’s safe to assume that if you are a Marine in Iraq any puppies you encounter are some of the very few living things there not actively trying to kill you.

But still the douchebags on Headline News are talking about the video of the puppy-tossing. And then they go to I believe it was Lejeune for the Marine Reaction. Suffice it to say the Marine Reaction falls somewhere in the “Devastated” range. It’s a travesty. It’s an outrage. We’re going to court martial that son of a bitch within an inch of his life!

They talk to the commandant of the camp and he expresses his displeasure at this turn of events. Then comes the money quote:

“Every Marine is concerned about this.”

Every Marine? Every one of them? Really? REALLY?

Blowing up god knows how many puppies, that we’re fine with, but one guy pretends to be a Marine playing catch with a puppy – well, perhaps my usage of the phrase “playing catch with” doesn’t exactly express the transitive as well as it should – every Marine is concerned.

I hate the world.

A slight service interruption...

I'll be posting the week 3 Tournament of Champions results tonight. I'll do it before Lost. I promise.

For now, though, I have a request:

Does anyone out there work in HR? I have some... questions. I could use some discreet answers.

During the working day get in touch with me at my new work e-mail - access to GMail is blocked here as a fairly understandable security precaution - which is my firstname.lastname@lmco.com, and after 5PM you can get me on my regular GMail.

Any help is appreciated. I may even give points for it.

JLK

Your "This Station WILL Be Completed On Schedule" Quizo Update

Very little this week again, I'm afraid. And I know the tournament results haven't been posted yet. I will bring them tonight and give them out to everyone. There is a reason for all this, though.

The reason is that I learned last week that I got a new job, starting this morning, at Lockheed Martin. Something to do with making spaceships and satellites and such. Yes, it's true, now I will finally have access to the orbital death lasers I have been threatening people with. As one person put it, "you'll be fine at work as long as you don't push the red button." Good timing, too, as I was just starting to get sick of playing poker so much. But the mad preparations for said job transition have taken up pretty much all of the last few days.

I will make up for these egregious errors in some way. Probably by bribing you all with candy. You seem to enjoy that. And rightfully so. Candy is quite delicious, after all.

Very quick tournament update: Alias Pseudonym Undercover is currently in first place, followed by Das Boot, followed by Oprah's Book Club. More details tonight.

All right, then, I'm off to build the Death Star. Gotta remember to mention that whole "exhaust port" thing in my first meeting.

JLK

Your Belated Quizo Update

Yes, there is still Quizo tonight. I have, until now, been unable to send out the e-mail.

Anyone care to guess WHY?

Here's a hint: it's not anything nice, like the Phillies, or the new Springsteen album tomorrow, or me going to see Springsteen on Saturday.

There is a distinct chance that by the time I get to the bar tonight I will have told my boss to go fuck herself.

JLK

Your Wildly Vacillating Quizo Update

I have railed against the weather numerous times in this space - previous instances of summer cold or winter heat or snow in April or whatever - and despite the fact that it is dark, cold, and raining in mid-August, the weather specifically is not what I'm shaking my fist at today. No, the problem is that for the last weekend life in general has taken this strange sort of erratic turn and, well, I tend to think my life was interesting enough beforehand.

One of the underlying causes of all of this is that the constant stress of obsessing about the horror show that my job has become is beginning to cause noticeable cracks in my psyche. This wouldn't be so bad were it not for the fact that it was pretty well cracked to begin with.

Things started well enough on Thursday night when I went to a book signing by William Gibson at the library. This was quite the big deal for me, bringing to 40% my completion rate for Meeting My Top Five Literary Idols - which is close to as impressive as it's going to get when one considers that meeting F. Scott Fitzgerald or William Shakespeare would require, respectively, some serious necromancy and some really, REALLY serious necromancy, and the fact David Mamet scares the shit out of me. (For the record, the other 20% that I successfully met was Neil Gaiman.)

The reading/signing thing was cool - he has aged an awful lot recently, but he's still sharp and funny, and when he signed my books he commented happily on how well-traveled my copy of Neuromancer was.

Then on the way home from the signing my car blew up.

This is only slightly an exaggeration. My car overheated fairly dramatically - the temperature gauge swinging back and forth over the redline, steam occasionally, but not constantly, billowing out from under the hood - and the next morning when I went to open the hood (it being too dark to see the engine at the time being, you know, night and all) there was coolant fluid pretty much everywhere, so it's a safe bet that SOMETHING with coolant in it, a hose of some sort I'm guessing, failed rather catastrophically while I was driving to the comic shop from the signing. I figure I was lucky to limp the car home. After consulting my finances and my personal feelings on the matter I determined that I am sick and fucking tired of spending money keeping this goddamn 16-year-old whoring sonofabitch car running. So, after my show is over I will be out and about on the market for a car.

Show, you say? Why yes! A show. Perhaps you've heard I produce shows. It's called Dealer's Choice. It is by Patrick Marber and it will be playing in the Restaurant at the pub opening on September 18. Originally we were going to be part of the Philly Fringe, but that is a gigantic pain in the ass to say the least, so we're not. Someone in my ridiculously talented cast - and here I do not exaggerate even the slightest little bit, this bunch is the most talented single group of actors I think I've ever seen in a show in this city, I don't know how in the HELL they're working for me - came up with the idea of calling our show the headliner of the "Philadelphia Binge Festival," and I liked it so much I decided to steal it. Tickets for the show are a scant $10, and if you get there early enough you also get to have dinner. So it's like going out for dinner and a show, only you're going to one place. Ask me for details. Website is up and ticket sales begin shortly.

Everyone remember the Medea references? Oh, that was nothing. Prepare to be besieged.

Anyway, a rental car later, me and some of my boys (and their moms and sisters, which was a little odd) were on our way to the Meadowlands on Saturday night to see the Los Angeles David Beckhams (nee Galaxy) play the New York Red Bulls. I wasn't sure what to expect from the experience necessarily, but two tailgates (totalling some 7 hours, both before and after the game), being pressganged into cooking for more than a hundred people at said tailgates, 66,000 fans in the stadium, spending the game next to several hundred Red Bulls supporters who can be charitably described as "completely insane" and NINE FUCKING GOALS! was certainly not it.

Sunday morning saw a big-time shock in the Manchester derby, and then something less of a shock as Chelsea and Liverpool played another spiteful, mean-spirited game that ended, mercifully, in a 1-1 draw, though I'm still convinced Chelsea left 2 points on the table there and could have won. The combination of the beginnings of cold and rain, the knowledge that I'd have to go to work 18 hours after, and the fact that we didn't beat the filthy Scouse put me in quite the pissy mood. Until I got home, at least, where after weeks of prodding I finally convinced my father to watch Hot Fuzz which - as I predicted - he loved, thus once again proving the age-old axiom "I am always right."

Then, just before bed, I pulled out my new William Gibson book to read before sleeping, and I noticed that one of my Top Five Literary Idols apparently inscribed all of my books "To Joan."

I don't even smoke anymore, but there aren't enough cigarettes in the goddamn world for this.

JLK

Your Bare Minimum Quizo Update

I had a whole, nice story planned for today that was going to provide tons of amusement for all who read it.

Then, about five minutes ago, I found out that what many have suggested - and I dismissed as impossible - appears to be true, as the rumor mill around my office informs me that my boss (my distaste for whom I have mentioned previously) is actually trying to get me to quit. Something about her disliking me intensely for unknown reasons but me being too good at my job - imagine that! - for her to fire me. This revelation does not particularly put me in a mood to concoct humor.

So, in the immortal words of Corporal Bobby Shaftoe: it's war, baby.

(And you thought I was just paranoid.)

JLK

Your Misinterpreted Symbolism Quizo Update

This morning we have a few random snippets from the last few days around the horn in an effort to bring some vague semblance of meaning to a random, chaotic universe.

- At work on Thursday in one of the many useless, interminable meetings I am forced to sit through I actually had to utter, totally seriously, the phrase, "I'm sorry, but I don't see our choice of software platform as a moral issue." This is the kind of crap I have to deal with during the day. And you wonder why I get crabby.

- Standing in the rear lobby of the Borgata (which is kind of like the Endor Shield Generator Back Door of the casino) at 4AM on Saturday a dealer friend of mine uttered, totally seriously, the phrase, "Frankie the Hat just cashed at the fifteen hundred stud, made thirty-six hundred, he woulda done better but that fuckface Darden outboated him on 7th Street," and not only am I vaguely horrified that I'm having this conversation at such an ungodly hour, but I briefly wonder where my life went wrong that at said hour I'm talking about SOMEONE I KNOW who is actually called "Frankie the Hat."

- I was still at the Borgata at 4AM on Saturday because, simultaneously, the bridge on the White Horse Pike was stuck in the "up" position, there was a gigantic accident at the Atlantic City toll plaza on the expressway, and there was - I am not making this up - a tattoo convention totally gridlocking traffic throughout the city, all of which combined to make it essentially impossible to leave Atlantic City before that ungodly hour. On another note, I have come to the conclusion that island living is probably not for me.

- I do not have any specific comments on the final episode of the Sopranos, but I did get a fairly complete recap of it from a friend of mine who did watch it and based on what I was told I agree with him that it does not sound exactly riveting.

- I did successfully vacation at the shore this weekend, and in between Jeeves and Wooster DVDs - FUNNIEST. SHIT. EVER. - managed to catch the back-to-back basic-cable airings of The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal which, shall we say, lose something in their edited versions. (For the record, I think Hannibal is a fascinating movie.)

- On the way home from the shore last night, I was stopped at a light in Pemberton when a car pulled up next to mine. Well, next to and just slightly forward of. While I was fiddling the radio between the Philadelphia and North Jersey NPR stations I heard some music coming from this car that made my head jerk up very quickly. Coming from this car was a song by a ridiculously obscure Swedish band called The Sounds that, to this date, I have never met a single other person who has heard of them. They're so obscure that I'm not even mentioning them as a clue to a question tonight as that would be unfair. To hear this band coming from another car in the middle of nowhere in Central New Jersey at 10 o'clock on a Sunday night is completely unreasonable. I looked to see who the other person in New Jersey to find - gasp! - a beautiful woman. Well, I assume she was beautiful. The combination of darkness and my viewing angle meant that all I could see was that she had blond hair and wore glasses. Suffice it to say that from the shoulders-up rear-three-quarter view she was quite attractive. And she had Pennsylvania plates! She was on her way home from the shore, just like me!

I was certain at this point that I had finally found the girl of my dreams.

This feeling lasted approximately 0.85 seconds until I realized that a) I still knew absolutely nothing about this woman other than the fact that she liked a band I liked and had her car registered in the same state as me, b) the last couple women I thought were the girl of my dreams turned out to be closer to Hannibal Lecter than Helen of Troy, and c) I refused to meet the girl of my dreams in a car in New Jersey, and especially not on the Pemberton end of 38.

Still, I was vaguely wistful when she peeled out of the light at about 400 miles an hour with "Queen of Apology" blaring out of the car windows.

- During a Rite Aid trip over my shore weekend I saw an endcap display for an actual item called "ear lobe tape." Now, the fact that "ear lobe tape" exists is frightening enough. The truly scary thing is that THERE WAS ONLY ONE LEFT. In a weekend full of frightening adventures, the fact that multiple people are walking around Ocean Gate, NJ with their earlobes taped to their skulls is the most frightening thing of all.

JLK

Your Clenched Teeth Quizo Update

Today's e-mail is again short and has little useful information in it because I am not at my desk. I am not at my desk because I am sitting at a computer hastily set up on an end table in another person's office - an office designed for use by only one person - because the thrice-damned whore I used to share a large, two-person office with (we've talked about her before) decided she wanted her intern to have my desk.

So because there is literally nowhere else in the entire department to put a computer, I (the systems administrator who has worked here for six months) am sitting at an end table while a 19-year old intern (who started 25 minutes ago and whose duties, I just learned, consist of data entry and stuffing envelopes) gets my gigantic desk in my large office. And my chair. And my phone.

Yeah, this is gonna end well.

JLK

Your Share and Share Alike Quizo Update

I woke up this morning and peeked out my blinds to see how hard it was still raining, as the night before I had been seriously worried that I could drown walking from my house to my car. Five inches of rain in the last day and no end in sight. FIVE INCHES OF RAIN! That's the equivalent of, like, twenty-five feet of snow. Or two feet, I can't be bothered to figure out how much it actually is.

I could not tell how hard it was raining, however, because my window was covered in some kind of opaque white substance. "Now," I said, "that can't be snow, because it's April 16th, and for me to be unable to see out my window on April 16th because it is covered in snow is just insane."

I instead chose to believe that, somehow, my window had been covered in white paint by some malicious third party. Possibly leprechauns. The fact that my window is some 25 feet or so above the ground was merely a logical inconvenience, and I went about getting ready for work convinced that gold-hoarding pituitary dwarfs from County Cork had painted over my windows, as the alternative was too terrible to contemplate.

Then I stepped outside to go to work to find that not only was it, in fact, snowing, but it was snowing sideways.

Snowing. Fucking. SIDEWAYS. On April 16th.

I just stood on the front step, sighed, and said, "it's going to be one of those days."

And, lo, it is. I had almost an entire hour to myself in the office this morning before the thrice-damned woman who also sits in this room arrived and showed me that a day when I wake up to sideways snow actually CAN get worse.

Let me explain something to you.

I like my job. I really like my job. Those who know me well realize what a freakish statement this is, but it's true. Aside from the occasional grunt work - like back in February or so when I spent two weeks looking up zip codes, which is as much fun as it sounds - my job is challenging and interesting. The people, for the most part, are very nice.

But I swear to god I'm going to kill this fucking woman.

I know more about this woman's personal life than I knew about the personal lives of most of the women I've DATED, since even when we were dating I didn't spend forty hours a goddamned week listening to them talk - talk very loudly, for hours at a stretch - about their personal lives. I know where she lives. I know what her husband does for a living. I know what her EX-husband did for a living. I know where her children went to college. I know where they work. I know what kind of car her husband drives. I don't want to know these things. I know them anyway.

This knowledge, mind you, comes JUST from when she talks on the phone. This activity takes up, I dunno, maybe 3-4 hours a day. The other 4-5 hours are spent talking to the never ending stream of people who are constantly in and out of this room to talk to this woman. As close as I can figure, approximately 3% of these visits are work-related. The rest are just her talking about meaningless nonsense to other people - sometimes as many as FOUR other people at one time - about, I dunno, whatever stupid shit is rattling around in the sorry excuse for a birdcage this woman calls a brain.

Not to mention that she has what might be charitably considered the most annoying speech pattern in the history of sentient lifeforms. Imagine listening to, say, Fran Drescher doing an impression of Kelly from The Office reading the Declaration of Independence while jabbing icepicks into your eyeballs every time the word "for" or "he" comes up. It's like that. When ending a conversation or when someone leaves the office she says bye-ee. Two syllables. "Bye" and "ee." I hear the word bye-ee about 40 times a day. At one point, when someone came in here to tell a story about their newborn son, she said the word "awww" fourteen times in sixty seconds. I counted. FOURTEEN TIMES IN ONE MINUTE. I am not making this up. This is the background noise of my day.

At least it was. Initially I listened to my iPod while working because it helped me concentrate while I was trying to do extremely detailed systems administration. Now I just blast whatever I've got - at this moment it's the soundtrack to The Matrix Revolutions - at the highest volume possible to drown out the incessant noise in this room. Because, you know, programming a massive database that has to accurately track every penny that comes into this place lest the IRS seize the hospital's assets, I wouldn't want to work WITHOUT FUCKING DISTRACTIONS while doing that, would I?

I look outside and it's still snowing, though at least right now it appears to be coming straight down.

Anyone still wonder why I'm bitchy?

JLK

Your Highly Irregular Quizo Update

Just to let people know if they hadn't heard already - tonight and next Thursday night I will be filling in for Johnny Goodtimes as he enjoys a well-deserved vacation. To mark the occasion, tonights games - 8PM at the Good Dog Tavern, 15th and Walnut, and 10-ish at the Bards, 20th and Walnut - will feature the return of what is generally considered to be the greatest speed round in Dark Horse history.

That's right - "Naughty, Evil, or Just Plain Disgusting" is back.

Also, if anyone else is from the general Mayfair vicinity and can explain why, when I stepped outside this morning, the entire neighborhood smelled like cookies I could really use that information. Fucking weird.

I was so consumed by the whole cookie thing that this morning, at a department breakfast (something to do with an upgrade project that apparently I worked on) I wasn't really paying attention while I was talking to this guy who kept asking these very pointed questions about the technology I spend most of my time working with. I was speaking very disparagingly about it since a) the technology I spend most of my day working with absolutely sucks, the fact that I designed small parts of it at my last job notwithstanding, and b) I am desperately trying to get rid of it, primarily because it sucks so much. Most of my mind, however, was still on the cookie thing so I probably was more disparaging than usual and the occasional colorful comment may have slipped in.

As I was leaving I asked one of my coworkers, "hey, who was that guy I was talking to, anyway?"

"That's Dr. Beck," he says.

"Oh, Dr. Beck, well." Whatever.

"He's the CIO."

At which point I realized that CIO = my departmental superboss = guy eventually responsible for buying dreck technology I work with/designed parts of.

...

...

Son of a BITCH people need to tell me these things beforehand.

See you tonight, then, or if not Monday night.

JLK

Breaking News! Quizo Update

I have just learned that as of next week I will be the new Data Manager for Institutional Advancement (I believe the technical title is) at a terribly prestigious local hospital. An institution whose staff will now consist of Nobel Prize winners, Kyoto Prize laureates, and - most importantly - myself. An august group if there ever was one, and a gathering I obviously belong in.

Or, in the parlance of the land: NEW JOB, BITCHES! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Excessively infantile celebrating commences at 9 tonight (along with Quizo).

JLK

(I can go to the doctor for the first time in 4 years! In, er, 90 days! Yay for managed healthcare!)